Solved: non-VBA question (Paragraph Styles)

[JohnnyBravo]

I've never been a big fan of using the Styles feature in Word but only recently have I started to use it. So that being said, I'm very good with Word, but a novice with the 'Styles' feature.

I created a style in one document (we'll call it Resume1.doc for the purpose of this posting); however, when I tried to apply it to a different document, I found that the one I had created did not appear in the Styles list. A Google search turned up some hits on how to copy a particular style to my normal.dot template, and I thought I had followed the directions to the 'T' - but still no joy. :(

These were the steps I followed:
1) Tools Menu | Templates & Add Ins
2) Under the Templates tab click on "Organizer"
3) In the left window representing Resume1.doc, select the custom style "BulletPt_ListAc" and then click 'Copy' so that it copies over to the Normal.dot template.

My understanding was that once a style is copied over to the normal.dot template, it can be applied to any future documents as well. Am I not understanding this correctly?

[MOS MASTER]

My understanding was that once a style is copied over to the normal.dot template, it can be applied to any future documents as well. Am I not understanding this correctly?

Yes it will be as long as the "future document" is bound to that Normal template!

But if you want to make sure your target document will nog lose it's styles dan go back to the organizer and copy those styles IN that target document.

HTH.

[fumei]

It should definitely work that way. Are you saying it is NOT in Normal.dot?????

[JohnnyBravo]

The newly created style does indeed appear in the list of styles when I open up the template organizer. What I was puzzled about is why it [the new style] did not appear when I opened up a different document. What I learned is that if I open a different document, I have to open up the organizer again, and copy the desire styles over to the document that it's being applied to.

So I recorded a macro that copies over Style A, Style B, Style C, to the ActiveDocument. The only minor glitch is that if I create a new style "Style D", then I have to modify my macro so that it copies over the first 3 styles plus the newly created one.

[fumei]

Hold on. Hold on.
What I was puzzled about is why it [the new style] did not appear when I opened up a different document. Just to delay the comment for a while...


Say you have a template - myNewTemplate.Dot.

You clone a new document, and save it, and close it.

You OPEN myNewTemplate.Dot and make a new style. Then save the template.

Now, you open the previous created document. Did you think it would have the new style??? NOT! Any existing document will have the values of the attached template at the time it was created.

So....you copy a new style to normal.dot. Cool. Any existing document - based on normal - will NOT have that style. Any NEW documents will.

You can however, if this is something you will be needing often, do a styles update on opening a document. Look up UpdateStyles method in Help. You could do a general update of all documents (in the example), or, you could have in the Document_Open event, an update. That way whenever a document is opened it will always updates the styles from the attached template.

[JohnnyBravo]

Now, you open the previous created document. Did you think it would have the new style??? NOT! Any existing document will have the values of the attached template at the time it was created.

So....you copy a new style to normal.dot. Cool. Any existing document - based on normal - will NOT have that style. Any NEW documents will.
That makes it crystal clear to me now.



You can however, if this is something you will be needing often, do a styles update on opening a document. Look up UpdateStyles method in Help.

I will give it a go on my work PC tomorrow and see if it suits my needs. Thanks.